Raytheon means "light from the gods." The company is the maker of
"Bunker Buster" bombs, Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, and manufactured
the missile that killed 62 civilians in a Baghdad market
in 2003. The company is a major American defense contractor and
industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in
defense systems and defense and commercial electronics.

Established in 1922, the company reincorporated in 1928 and adopted
its present name in 1959. The company has around 73,000 employees
worldwide and annual revenues of approximately US$20 billion. More than
90 percent of Raytheon's revenues were obtained from defense contracts
and, as of 2007, it was the fifth largest defense contractor in the
world, and is the fourth largest defense contractor in the United
States by revenue (after Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman).

About 100 Raytheon million dollar land-attack cruise missiles were lobbed at Afghanistan from U.S. Navy ships since October 7th, fifty in the opening salvo alone.

Raytheon also makes the "bunker buster" GBU- 28, a 5,000-pound bomb and missiles like the TOW, Maverick and Javelin, used in Operation Enduring Freedom. In addition to missiles, Raytheon also builds sensors and radars used on unmanned and manned reconnaissance airplanes used extensively in Afghanistan.

The company has paid millions of dollars in fines for illegal activities. In October 1994, Raytheon paid $4 million to settle government charges that it had inflated the cost of a $71.5 million radar contract. In October 1993, Raytheon paid out $3.7 million to settle U.S. government charges that it had inflated the cost of Patriot missiles. The year before the company paid out $2.75 million for overpricing missile test equipment. In March 1990, Raytheon pleaded guilty in federal court to Judge Albert Bryan, Jr. in Virginia for illegally obtaining secret Air Force budget and planning documents. The company paid a million dollars in fines. In October 1987, the Justice Department signed on to a $36 million lawsuit originally filed by a former Raytheon employee, which alleged that Raytheon submitted false claims for work done on missiles.

One of Raytheon's more secretive subsidiaries is E-Systems, whose major clients have historically been the CIA and other spy agencies like the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. An unnamed Congressional aide told the Washington Post once that the company was ''virtually indistinguishable'' from the agencies it serves. ''Congress will ask for a briefing from E- Systems and the (CIA) program manager shows up,'' the aide is quoted as saying. ''Sometimes he gives the briefing. They're interchangeable.''

Aircraft support for drug-enforcement activities become a part of E-Systems' work after it bought up Air Asia, the CIA's aircraft repair and maintenance facility in Taiwan in 1975. Until E-Systems took it over, Air Asia provided support for Air America, the CIA's covert airline that ferried arms, heroin and opium in Indo-China during the Vietnam War, according to the British reporter Christopher Robbins, who wrote the authoritative account of the airline's history in 1979.

Immediately after acquiring Air Asia, E-Systems won a contract to maintain planes for the U.S.-funded Operation Condor in Mexico. Condor monitored drug trafficking in the state of Sinaloa in the mid-1970s. A 1985 U.S. congressional study found that the contract was ''a shambles ... There are no adequate records to indicate how the funds have been and are being spent.'' The study also cited incidents of planes being used for joy rides. Peter Dale Scott and Jonathon Marshall, authors of ''Cocaine Politics,'' say that the Condor operation ''succeeded in filling the jails with hapless peasants ... but failed to arrest a single drug trafficker.''

E-Systems paid $4.2 million in 1994 to settle a lawsuit brought by Carlos Uribe, a man in El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border. Uribe charged that an E-Systems employee, Truett Burney, accidentally murdered Uribe's wife in a hotel room when his gun went off in an adjoining room in September, 1991. Burney's lawyers said he was helping install ''top secret listening devices'' on suspected drug traffickers at the time.

E-Systems has a murky history as a military contractor also. The first time the company appeared in the news was when it was sued by the widow of an employee who was killed in a 1971 crash of an Air Force plane sent to spy on a French nuclear test.

In the early 1970s, E-Systems won the contract to install communication gear on Air Force One, the U.S. president's plane. This led to similar contracts for the heads of state of Iran, Israel, Nigeria, Malaysia, Romania and Saudi Arabia. E-Systems has since built the ''Doomsday Plane,'' an airborne command post for the Pentagon and the White House in the event of a nuclear attack.

In 1977, during the height of the ''dirty war'' in Argentina, E-Systems won a contract to supply ''Wheelbarrow'' systems -- a radio transmitter that detonates explosives by remote control -- to the Argentine police. In August 1990, E-Systems pleaded guilty to criminal charges of falsifying results on tactical field radios manufactured at its Florida factories. The company paid out almost $3 million in fines to settle the charges.

Spies for Hire: New Online Database of U.S. Intelligence Contractorsby Tim Shorrock, Special to CorpWatch November 16th, 2009CorpWatch joins with Tim Shorrock today, the first journalist to blow the whistle on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, in releasing Spies for Hire.org, a groundbreaking database focusing on the dozens of corporations that provide classified intelligence services to the United States government.

US: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S. Governmentby CHRISTOPHER DREW and JOHN MARKOFF, New York TimesMay 30th, 2009The Obama administration’s push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts. Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.

US: Deputy SecDef could earn $500K lobbying Pentagonby Lara Jakes, Washington Post January 27th, 2009William J. Lynn, the man nominated to be the Pentagon's second-in-command could make a half-million dollars next month with vested stock he earned as a lobbyist for military contractor Raytheon. This is despite an Obama administration order against "revolving door" lobbyists who become public officials.

ISRAEL: U.S. approves $330 million in arms deals for Israelby Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters September 9th, 2008The U.S. government on Tuesday said it had approved up to $330 million in three separate arms deals for Israel, and sources tracking a much bigger deal for 25 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets said that agreement could be approved later this month.

US: Giuliani Had Ties to Company Trying to Sell Border Technologyby RUSS BUETTNER, New York TimesJanuary 18th, 2008On the presidential campaign trail, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani often promotes the installation of electronic monitoring devices at the border to stem illegal immigration, without mentioning that until a few months ago, he was partner in a company trying to market such technology.

INDIA: Building a Modern Arsenal in Indiaby Heather Timmons and Somini Sengupta, The New York TimesAugust 31st, 2007India is developing a military appetite to match its growing economic power. With a ballooning arms budget, India will soon become one of the largest military markets in the world, making it an important new target for American arms manufacturers.

US: Chief's Pay Is Docked by Raytheonby Leslie Wayne, The New York TimesMay 3rd, 2006Raytheon directors punished the chief executive, William H. Swanson, by taking away almost $1 million from his 2006 compensation yesterday because he failed to give credit for material that was in a management book he wrote.

US: Business booming for U.S. defense contractors by Peter Bauer, MenafnAugust 20th, 2005U.S. defence contractors are riding high these days, buoyed by rising Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the high cost of homeland security in the U.S.-declared war on terror.
The fiscal 2006 defence budget is set to climb to 441 billion dollars, an increase of 21 billion dollars over 2005. It envisions an additional 50 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.